Monday, October 13, 2014

At Abudhabi, Australia beat Pak by a
solitary run in the third one dayer.. and do you remember Mudgal ? yes Justice Mudgal or the Mudgal Committee appointed by a bench of Justice A.K. Patnaik
and Justice J.S. Kehar of the Supreme Court, to probe the allegation of betting
and spot-fixing ?

Nearly a week ago, former union
minister and Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor had “incensed”
the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) leaders, irrespective of factions,
uniting them in calling for disciplinary action. The reason, according to them,
was that he praised prime minister Narendra Modi and his “Swachh Bharat”
campaign. Today, the Congress party dropped him as party spokesperson for the
same crime.

At Abu Dhabi, the incident occurred in the 18th over of
Pakistan's chase of 231. After Xavier Doherty delivered the ball and before
Fawad made contact with his paddle sweep, Smith had moved from first slip
towards leg slip to intercept the shot. When Fawad played the sweep, he would
not have known there was going to be a catcher at leg slip. By the time the
ball hit bat, Smith was almost past the wicketkeeper and was able to take a
simple catch down the leg side. The umpires Richard Illingworth and Ahsan Raza
discussed the catch with the third umpire Nigel Llong before giving Fawad out. According
to Law 41.7, which governs movement of fielders, "Any significant movement
by any fielder after the ball comes into play, and before the ball reaches the
striker, is unfair. In the event of such unfair movement, either umpire shall
call and signal dead ball." Law 41.8 defines significant movement for
close catchers as: "For close fielders anything other than minor
adjustments to stance or position in relation to the striker is
significant."

Back home, the Supreme Court of India will wait for the
Mudgal Committee report before it decides whether to intervene with the
postponement of BCCI's annual general meeting to November 20. With sidelined
BCCI president N Srinivasan set to contest for another term, the Cricket
Association of Bihar had filed an interlocutory application on September 16,
asking the court to direct the BCCI to hold its AGM with immediate effect.
Aditya Verma, the CAB secretary, had also stated in his application that
Srinivasan standing for the BCCI elections was illegal as his name featured in
the Mudgal probe.